Coinbase sees outage after Super Bowl ad prompts ‘unprecedented’ traffic
Coinbase was forced to “throttle” traffic to its website after generating more interest than expected with its unusual Super Bowl ad.
Last night’s Super Bowl contest saw the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams. Off the pitch Coinbase competed with fellow crypto exchange FTX to grab viewers attention as the two companies dropped the first digital asset advertisements to feature at the popular sporting event.
The site saw 20m hits on its landing page in one minute after the launch of the bizarre advert, which featured a QR code bouncing around the screen. People who scanned the QR code were urged to sign up for a Coinbase account with $15 of Bitcoin promised to new sign ups in order to sweeten the deal.
Data from the Block shows that Coinbase’s app briefly shot up from 186th to 2nd place on the App Store while FTX-owned Blockfolio and eToro also shot up the rankings.
The high profile promotions are a sign of crypto’s entry into mainstream culture. Both companies will have shelled out a record $6.5m for just thirty seconds of air time received during NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast.
However, analysts reactions to the move were mixed with Coinbase shares dropping by as much as five per cent today.
“It is difficult not to feel a little divided over the “crypto bowl” hype,” said Anto Paroian, Chief Operating Officer at digital assets investment fund ARK36.
“The crypto bowl bore an eerie resemblance to the dot-com bowl back in the year 2000 that signaled the peak mania moment of the dot-com stock bubble… crypto assets are inherently volatile and there are many projects in the crypto space that won’t stand the test of time,” he continued, warning that the ads could encourage investors to “plunge headlong” into dubious investments.
It comes as regulators in the UK sound the alarm over promotions for digital assets which target mass audiences and take advantage of inexperienced investors. The British Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has labelled crypto a red alert priority area while the FCA is in the process of drawing up new guidance for crypto promotions.
Coinbase has already come under fire from the ASA for misleading customers with an advert which was banned for suggesting returns from digital assets could be guaranteed and failing to include adequate risk warnings.
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